City Hall Launches New Employment Office
Seattle's municipal government establishes a central bureau to help citizens find work, signaling a shift toward centralized city aid.
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The free employment bureau, established by a recent amendment to the city charter, has been opened by Commissioner John Lamb at 110 South Third Street. Already, 600 men and women have registered. Commissioner Lamb is distributing circulars to employers across the Puget Sound region, including loggers, lumbermen, and mine owners, urging them to utilize the service to find reliable labor. Lamb noted that the office is currently austere but operational, and he advocates for a separate, designated space for women to register, acknowledging that they should not have to wait in a crowd of men. The bureau aims to provide a reliable link between the unemployed and businesses without charging fees to either party.
“It will be the aim of this office to furnish reliable and capable help in all departments of labor, to deal promptly and fairly with its patrons.”
The creation of this bureau marks the early days of municipal social safety nets in Seattle. It prefigures the modern state-level Employment Security Department, showing that the challenge of matching labor to industry has been a central civic function for over a century.
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